What is the shield around your propane burner made of? Is it a piece of duct work or something?

Yep. The burner sites on two concrete blocks. I wrap a piece of ductwork around it with a hole drilled in each end. A piece of copper wire in the holes serves as a "latch" to keep it around the burner.

http://morebeer.ning.com/photo/chillinginwinter-1?context=userhopefully the link will work... this is from last winter. I believe that my chiller actually froze up during the chilling process and I ended up breaking up frozen wort on the "out" line of the CFC. Planning on brewing a bock tomorrow, with a balmy 30 degrees and snow in the forecast.

I love the wind screen! Way better than the tin foil I use. Thanks for posting the picture!

+1

Great idea! ... I need to adopt that one.

sorry about the hijack, especially with green grass in the photo, but wanted to share my similar windscreen solution - quite a bit bulkier than the ductwork, but the culvert company was fine with giving me a piece of scrap culvert - even cut it to size for me. I used a stone metal-cutting wheel blade on my skil saw to cut the notch, and smoothed edges with a grinder.

It has a large enough diameter that it doesn't get very hot from the burner.

I kept the piece I cut out, and bent it and position it under the spigot as a heat shield.

I love the wind screen! Way better than the tin foil I use. Thanks for posting the picture!

+1

Great idea! ... I need to adopt that one.

sorry about the hijack, especially with green grass in the photo, but wanted to share my similar windscreen solution - quite a bit bulkier than the ductwork, but the culvert company was fine with giving me a piece of scrap culvert - even cut it to size for me. I used a stone metal-cutting wheel blade on my skil saw to cut the notch, and smoothed edges with a grinder.

It has a large enough diameter that it doesn't get very hot from the burner.

I kept the piece I cut out, and bent it and position it under the spigot as a heat shield.

I guess you just kicked it up one notch, that's even better. I'm going to have to reconsider that idea.

I'm not so sure mine is a better solution - just free. A friend of mine uses ductwork and the way it cinches up against his kettle it has less heat loss than mine, and so I'm pretty sure his requires less propane. If I did duct work I think I would try to have it end below the spigot, or have a cutout where that would fit through.

Still, I can and have brewed in stiff winds and it simply is no big deal.